8 Description of the Buddhist Ruins at Bakariya Kund. [No. 1. 



children build with their little wooden bricks. A second object of in- 

 terest here is a cut stone screen, which serves the place of a window. 



Nearly a hundred and fifty feet to the east of the last mentioned 

 buildings, is another which has evidently been erected with old materials, 

 and is of doubtful antiquity. It has four pillars, two outer and two 

 inner, exclusive of others imbedded in the walls, and has five recesses 

 on its three sides. The carvings have been to some extent obliterated 

 by the whitewash with which the mosque is bedaubed. 



Still further on eastwards, at a distance of 75 feet, is a terrace 

 walled round by a stone breastwork 48 feet long by 36 broad, on 

 which stand four exquisitely carved columns, sustaining an ancient 

 roof, the remains probably of a chaitya or Buddhist temple, or of its 

 innermost shrine. Its position is exactly opposite the Buddhist temple 

 to the west, yet to be described, from which it is distant 550 feet. 

 The columns are 7 feet 7 inches in height including the base, and 

 are elaborately ornamented ; in which respect they differ from the 

 pillars of the other temple, which, for the most part, are destitute of 

 ornamentation. The four sides of the base display an elegant carving of 

 a vase with flowers drooping low over the brim — a device always found in 

 these parts in Buddhist shrine-pillars. The well-known representation of 

 a face with a floreated scroll streaming forth from the mouth, eyes and 

 moustache, is repeated four times on each column, and above it runs a 

 band of beads, each of which is nearly an inch in diameter. An arc 

 of the sun's disk rests upon this band, and higher up, the column 

 becomes octagonal. It then becomes quadrilateral again, and on each 

 side is an exquisite design, exceedingly well executed, of an overflowing 

 vase. The pillar is crowned with a capital, beneath which is a broad 

 double moulding. The cornice above the architrave is also beautifully 

 cut. But the ceiling of this shrine, consisting of overlapping stones 

 built as before described, is perhaps its most striking feature. Each 

 stone is richly carved, and was originally coloured, while representations 

 of suns and lotuses are depicted upon them in bold relief. Taking it 

 altogether, this little remnant of antiquity is a charming piece of art, 

 and is in itself a proof of the delicacy in taste and expertness in 

 chiselling of the architects of those times, and is also a proof of the 

 sad degeneracy of their posterity. 



This Chaitya seems to have been the eastern extremity of the 



